Green Party Platform:
Disarmament
Green values emphasize the sanctity of life and the peaceful resolution of conflicts. Disarmament isn't just a desirable end result of these goals, it is also an important step toward attaining them.
Even before the Soviet Union's dissolution, our level of armament grossly exceeded any reasonable estimate of what we needed for national defense. These weapons' destructive capacity, if they were used, would guarantee an unimaginably horrific toll in human life and environmental damage that would affect many generations to come. When the USSR dissolved as a single sovereign entity, our former superpower enemy died. When that occurred, the rationalization justifying these weapons of mass destruction became obsolete.
The diversion of economic resources to the defense industry is largely responsible for our decline in international trade. Defense spending has also been funded at the expense of many badly needed social programs.
Exporting weapons, and arranging foreign loans for weapons purchases, in effect means that we are encouraging armed conflicts for our own profit. We are encouraging foreign countries to develop militarized economics with the same bad effects that we've experienced in the U.S.
The Green Party advocates progress towards disarmament:
- Make a realistic assessment of our national defense needs. We must stop the research, development, testing and deployment of offensive weapons--especially nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. We must halt the international exchange of nuclear technologies and materials.
- Immediately ban international arms sales, and enact a unilateral reduction in our current armaments stockpiles. We need bilateral and multilateral agreements to eliminate all offensive weapons.
- Set up a multi-level international peace-keeping force consisting of citizen groups as well as the U.N.
- Escalate talks with the former USSR republics to account for, and eliminate, their stockpiles of weapons-- especially, weapons grade plutonium. We call on the world community to assist in alternative job programs for nuclear weapons engineers.
- Ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and enforce and strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Communities and states should have the right to establish legally binding nuclear-free zones.
- Make readily available information about Department of Defense (DOD) and Department of Energy (DOE) weapons spending, including accountability for the ultra-secretive "black budget." Stop funding Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) programs.